9/11 Remembered: Josh Capon

10 years later, chefs discuss the impact of 9/11

Josh Capon hurried from SoHo to help feed volunteers on 9/11 and through the weeks of recovery that followed.

We're featuring the personal stories of several chefs from New York City and around the country to see what they went through on that morning 10 years ago, and how 9/11 has affected them as people and as chefs.

Josh Capon is chef at Lure Fishbar and chef and co-owner of B&B in New York City.

Where were you and what happened on the morning of 9/11?
I woke up on September 11 at my place on 19th and 3rd, turned on the TV and was just shocked. I immediately went down to work, at Canteen on Prince and Mercer (which is now Lure Fishbar), and it was pretty crazy. I spent the day evaluating the situation and quickly realized we were going to be closed for quite some time because we were close to Ground Zero.

I went across the street to Mercer Kitchen to see Chef Chris Beischer and he was already packing up meals and stuff to figure out what he could do. Even though it was just the local police and stuff like that in the area [at first] we figured we’d take care of that. From there, I was probably the first guy down there to organize relief efforts. But at the time there was nothing going on down there. We got down there and we took over the local pier. There’s a school right on the west side that we were given and we took it over. I don’t think the kitchen had been used in a very long time, but we took it over, we set up the restaurant with tables and chairs, and we started organizing all of the food that came in, anything from canned peaches and ketchup to high quality products such as rack of lamb and duck breast. And we did a great job because we didn’t only provide a meal but what was more important to me, being in the hospitality business, is that we provided an aid and an escape, if you will, a place to go and forget about, at least for 10 minutes, what was really taking place.